User blog:Ilivetowrite/New player in Isles and Prairie
I've been playing on a new account, and it's helped me to see the reasoning behind some of the changes that we've seen in this update. There are things, particularly with emotes, the happen quite differently than they did the first time (and even the last time) we veterans collected emotes. All of the emotes are still available in the game, though some have moved around a bit within the levels. When you activate an emote sequence, you follow the Spirit around until you come to the end, where there's a statue of the Spirit covered in darkness. You burn that, and the Spirit is freed. He then becomes an orb of light, and flies to the ending building (wherever that may be). The darkness covered spirit looks very much like that dark ghost person we saw in the Stadium in the last update. I'm not sure he's gone in this update. At the end of a level, all of the Spirit orbs await you in the final room. When you initiate the cut scene, the Spirits that you freed join you in meditation. It's quite an awesome scene this way. I am not sure if you're with others (I was alone) if your companions disappear during this scene. I'll have to test this out. What this means is, if you go home after collecting new emotes but before finishing the level, while you'll have the emotes to use in your menu, and the constellation will show those emotes on the map, you will not be able to access the map. There will be a red dot next to it, but you will have to finish the level (returning that light to the elder/sky) before you can access the map. This also sort of explains why all of the Spirits from the previous level show up in the beginning of the next level. It allows you to visit their shop without going home. The Spirits no longer hang around where you freed them (as they did in previous versions of the game). So TGC has put them in the beginning of the next area for you to visit and shop from. The problem here is that even old seasonal emotes show up there, which would give the player the impression there was another emote to collect which there is not. Otherwise, a player would have an indication how many emotes he missed, by counting the stones in the rest area at the beginning of the next level. So this means that when you collect an emote, you have to finish a level (watch the cut scene for that level) before the map will be available in Home Space. This explains the absence of the Spirits for us veterans. It also means that veterans will have a hard time helping new players, especially veterans who have never started a new account. The Spirit Stones aren't even there anymore for many of them (I think they are for some). With how emotes have moved around, this makes it quite difficult for veterans to help find emotes. It is still incorrect how the constellation gates show that stars are needed rather than emotes in order to gain entry. There is an animation after you collect the first emote in Isle that shows the green barrier to the gate disappearing, so it's very clear it's meant to be emotes. Yet when you try to burn through the gate without having what you need, it says your flame is not strong enough, collect more stars. You can't even collect more than the initial Star when you reach that first gate, and you have one, and it still says 0/1. So this is something TGC will need to correct. It makes sense that the flame is not strong enough, so the logic of that message is right, but it's not consistent with what you actually need to do. I rather like how the game encourages you to move on and come back to this place later. There's an emote in Isles that you cannot collect until you've gone through the game once. BTW, so far, I cannot return to Isle on this playthrough. I just finished Prairie and entered Forest, and if I try to go through the Isle gate in Home Space, it tells me I need to finish my adventure first. I will be curious if it actually means I have to play the entire game. In previous updates, that message has gone away before the end. Back to emotes, you can get into the Nestand Caves areas (and collect the star in fields) with just Prairie and Isle Emotes, but you cannot get into the inner Cave in caves to collect the wipe brow emote until you have found emotes in Forest. I am pretty sure you can go back to Prairie after (or during) Forest, though. It's only Isles that I can't access yet. Category:Blog posts